From Depths to Distribution — Part 2: Taking Captivity Captive
How the ascended Christ turned His victory into our mission
From Humiliation to Exaltation
In Part 1, we stood at the depths of Christ’s humiliation, the descensus ad inferos rightly understood as the covenant curse concentrated at Calvary, the full abandonment of God's favorable presence, and the unnatural state of death itself.
We understood that His descent was not an after-death journey to a mythical prison, but the moment in which the final judgment arrived early and fell fully on Him in our place.
But the Apostles’ Creed will not allow us to stop there. It moves without hesitation from “He descended” to “He ascended.” The humiliation gives way to exaltation as the necessary continuation of the work He began. And the New Testament refuses to let us picture that exaltation as a silent or private return to heaven.
Paul, in Ephesians 4, gives us an exact explanation of the theological implications of the ascension. He draws from Psalm 68, a psalm of the Divine Warrior returning to His holy mountain after defeating His enemies, leading a parade of captives, and receiving tribute. This is not an image of Christ slipping quietly back into the heavens, nor is it where He takes the blood to a heavenly mercy seat; rather, it is the language of coronation and conquest.
The Royal Procession
Psalm 68 celebrates the LORD as a victorious King who scatters His enemies, delivers His people, and ascends to His dwelling in triumph. In the psalm, the ascension is not a spiritual metaphor; it is the climax of the work of redemption. The King returns with a line of defeated enemies, bound and powerless, as proof that the war has been won.
When Paul applies this to Christ in Ephesians 4:8, he is making a deliberate theological claim: the ascension is the public procession of the risen Christ into heaven as the victorious King. The “captivity” He leads is not, as some have claimed, the souls of Old Testament believers being escorted from a holding chamber in Sheol into heaven. That interpretation assumes that the believing dead were somehow still in Satan’s custody, awaiting Christ’s intervention, an idea the New Testament contradicts.
So, who or what is the “captivity” that Christ takes captive? It is the forces that held humanity in bondage: sin’s penalty, death’s dominion, Satan’s tyranny, and the curse of the law. These are the real captors, the oppressive powers that exercised dominion over fallen humanity.
In His death and resurrection, Christ invaded their stronghold, broke their power, and now, in His ascension, drags them in chains as trophies of His victory (Luke 11:21). Paul makes the same point in Colossians 2:15, when he writes that Christ “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in the cross.”
The Spoils of War
In the ancient world, the victory procession did not end with the captives; it ended with the distribution of spoils. The conquering king would take the wealth, treasures, and even skilled captives from the defeated nation and share them with his people. It was a public display of strength and legitimacy, a way of saying, “My victory benefits you.”
Paul strikingly adapts Psalm 68 here for His readers. In the psalm, the King receives gifts from men, and in Ephesians 4, Christ gives gifts to men. And what are these gifts? They are not gold or silver; they are people, primarily the offices of ministry: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. These are the royal appointments through which the ascended Christ continues to rule, feed, and equip His people.
To treat these offices as merely human appointments is to miss the point entirely. They are the appointed means by which Christ applies His victory to His church in this age. They are the distribution channels of the spoils of war. Their very existence is proof that He reigns and that His reign is for the benefit of His people.
The Misuse of “Priesthood of All Believers”
So that we do not miss the point, it is necessary to understand these gifts more in depth and their place in the church. All believers indeed share in the priesthood of Christ; they all have access to God through Him, and all are called to offer spiritual sacrifices. But this truth was never meant to erase the distinct offices Christ has given for the public ministry of Word and sacrament.
This is the reason that the Reformers fought a two-front battle. On one side was Rome’s clericalism, which made the grace of God hostage to a magisterial priesthood.
On the other side were the radicals who claimed that any inward sense of calling or spiritual fervor was enough to qualify someone for ministry.
The priesthood of all believers means that no Christian is second-class in Christ’s kingdom, but it does not mean that all are ministers in the same way. It was for this reason that the Reformers were careful to draw the line between the majesterial and the ministrial. The ascension gifts of Ephesians 4 are not general talents to be deployed however we wish; they are specific offices with Christ’s authority behind them.
Ministry as Distribution
Paul’s purpose statement in Ephesians 4:12 is unambiguous: these gifts are given “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”
Ministry begins with Christ’s victory, not human creativity (pragmatism). Evangelism is not a desperate attempt to tilt the battlefield in our favor; it is the royal announcement that the war is over, and Discipleship is not a self-improvement project or an intellectual endeavor; it is the ongoing application of the ascended Christ’s victory to His people.
When the church understands this, the “work of ministry” is rescued from two distortions (majesterial and minsterial). And when the church understands the “captivity” is sin, death, Satan, and the curse, then ministry is not about fighting to overcome those powers; rather, it is about proclaiming their defeat and applying the fruits of that defeat. The powers still exist, but they exist as chained and shamed enemies. Their final destruction is coming, but their dominion is already broken.
The humiliation of the descent secured the victory; the exaltation of the ascent launches the mission. The One who bore the curse has returned with the curse broken. The One who entered death’s prison has emerged with death’s keys in His hand. The One who was forsaken now fills all things (Eph. 4:10).
And the church’s role in this unfolding story is not to improvise a new mission but to carry out the one Christ has already begun. Every faithful sermon is a proclamation of His reign. Every baptism is a visible declaration that His death and resurrection are for us. Every celebration of the Lord’s Supper is a participation in the victory feast of the King.
We are not a people fighting to see whether Christ will win; we are a people living in the proof that He already has. Our life together is a foretaste of the final victory, when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
The same Christ who descended to the depths for you now reigns over all things for you. He has not left His church without weapons, without orders, or the sure hope of final victory.